Dare Mother of Pearls

[Anira Verseheart]

The Velvet Jaw didn’t smell like velvet. The brothel was pretending to be a palace. Gilded sconces, velvet drapes, and mirrors big enough to drown in. But the smell gave it away: sweat, stale perfume, the stink of sinners, and the sour tang of too many ugly secrets. Not fresh, but like old. Like debts. Somewhere down the hall, a woman was laughing in a way that didn’t reach her eyes. Anira knew the sound well enough. She let it roll past her like smoke, focusing instead on the man the madam was ushering inside.

“This way,” the madam rasped, one hand on the curve of her hip, the other waving vaguely toward the stairs. Madame Ceire. Pearls tight at her throat. The Madam stopped pretending to be civil about three hours after the theft.
"Try not to touch the bannister.” Ceire added without looking back. “Still sticky.”

The madam led job-takers to the hall where the painting had once hung. She stopped short of the empty wall, folding her arms. No theatrics, but a tired rage.

“There,” the woman said. Anira stepped forward carefully, her boots silent on the wine-stained rugs.
“That’s where She hung! No broken locks. No smashed doors. Someone walked in and just took Her!”

... and the wall remembered what it had lost.

A vast canvas, nearly two meters across. Not framed. Framed would have been too crude for something like Mother of Pearls. And gods, the thing shone. Not like gold, not like the varnish, but like something alive, catching light that wasn’t there. Layers of crushed mother-of-pearl, worked into the paint itself, had given it a shifting, restless sheen. Colors that moved when you weren’t looking directly at them. Blue one moment, silver the next, then pale green like absinthe poured over ice. Even the working girls and boys of The Velvet Jaw, hardened and bored by every vice in Crorefell’, used to slow as they passed it.

The image itself? Harder to describe. It wasn’t just a woman. It wasn’t just a sea. It was both, and neither. A shape, tall and narrow, stretched beyond natural proportions, hair flowing like ink spilled underwater. No face. Not really. Just the hint of one. Her arms spiraled out into curls of pale color, shifting and dissolving into waves at the edges.

Some said it was a goddess. Some said it was a door. Because if you looked too long, the waves started to move. Many had once stood in front of it for nearly an hour, without realizing it. Without blinking.

The painting wasn’t just expensive. It was dangerous.
It had been hung in The Velvet Jaw because no gallery wanted it. No temple dared take it.
So Madame Ceire had claimed it.

Now it was gone.

 

[Brennak Kor]

He didn't go to these places.

Sure, he'd heard about them. Everyone knew about them unless they'd lived a sheltered life. He didn't find them attractive, though. The idea of paying for such services... Call him old fashioned but he preferred the option of winning a woman's heart over being a paycheck.

But work was slow. When it was, he had to find other ways to keep busy. A Malcazadore didn't just have to be good at killing beasts, they had to be good at hunting and tracking. That meant they had skills in finding things. It meant they were capable detectives in their own right. He could tell stories of finding the lost children of rich folk who had been taken for things worse than a ransom. Some of them worse than what the average person could even imagine. Sometimes people disappeared that disappeared people as a result. Monsters came in many forms.

The Madame of the house, brothel not house, lead him to where the missing picture has been, urging caution about the railing being sticky. He made a face that indicated his disgust, but continued to roll a gold maldizia through his fingers as he stayed far from the railing.

"You should keep a tidier... facility," he said, his voice dripping with disdain. "It would make it harder to lose things."

They soon stopped in front of a wall so filthy that the place where the painting has hung was the cleanest space in the building. Prominently displayed within the waiting hall. It would be impossible to miss, and any value it had would be enticing to those who needed it, and those who collected it. Both of those types were sure to visit such an establishment.

"How long ago did you discover it was gone?"

Stepping to the wall, he became aware that another woman was nearby, watching them, though he didn't turn to look at her. He could feel her eyes on him as his hand reached out to touch the bare space, and his eyes moved down to the floor beneath, examining for any trace of... well, anything, really. There were always clues, one just had to look hard enough to find them.

 

[Anira Verseheart]

The Velvet Jaw reeked of wine gone to vinegar, old perfume, and the salt of too many bodies pressed too close for too long. Candlewax dripped along the walls. Of course, there were better rooms and worse men in Crorefell than what one found in this establishment.

Madame Ceire gave a little snort at his remark about tidiness, not quite a laughter. “I’ll take that under advice, Malcazadore,” the madame said in an unconvincing tone “But you will find filth and fortune are old lovers in Crorefell. One never sleeps without the other.” She adjusted her shawl, the motion quick and irritated, before turning toward the other woman in the room. “Since you’re so eager to get your bearings, allow me to make introductions.” Then, with a sharp tilt of her chin,“This,” Madame Ceire went on, “is the Lady Lark of the Lanes. Bard, one of the few in Crorefell who actually knows what the Mother of Pearls is, beyond its price tag.”

In a shimmer of pale blue and gold, the minstrel approached the pair. Leather boots brushing over spilled ale and regrets. “Well look at you,” she said, voice all bright and tease, “I’d imagine you have better ways to make coin. Beast-hunting, curse-breaking, gallant rescues...” The bard dipped her head just so. "And here you are, chasing a painting instead of glory.” Anira stepped closer to the wall where Mother of Pearls had once hung, a pale ghost amid grease-stained plaster and faded wallpaper.

“Still,” the bardess murmured, half to herself, “there are worse things to chase. She was beautiful, that one. Enough to make rich men stupid and poor men brave...”

"How long ago did you discover it was gone?"

“Two nights.” the madame informed.

 

[Brennak Kor]

"I have no doubt that filth and fortune go hand in hand almost everywhere in this world," Brennak said, as he looked over the wall.

His ability to truly study it was restricted by the announcement of the woman who was watching them. A bard? He didn't know who she was, despite the way she was introduced. Perhaps he should have. Perhaps she would find it offensive that he didn't. Wouldn't be the first time he offended someone and it certainly wouldn't be the last. Though he had been intentionally trying to offend the Madame of the house.

When she spoke, it immediately made him wish she hadn't. Bards were, by necessity, always looking for a story to tell or a song to sing. She spoke like he was some gallant adventurer, a wayward hero that everyone would want to hear about. He wasn't. He was just someone who survived, killed what nearly killed him, what did kill his parents, and used a found gold maldizia to become something he was never supposed to be. All he cared about was doing the next thing that came along, as long as it paid so he could stay fed and warm.

"Don't care about glory. Just care about the next job."

The Madame answered his question. Two days means no hot trace left behind. Everything here will have lost its potency. He didn't immediately know where he was going to start with little trace left behind. Scents would have helped. Even fresh dirt might have. After two days, though, he wouldn't find that.

"Tell me more about the painting, Bard. Why would so many want it? Need some way to narrow down the pool of potential subjects."

 

[Anira Verseheart]

"Don't care about glory. Just care about the next job."

Her mouth curved, half amusement, half pity. “Oh, darling. No glory, no dreams... just the next job." She took a few lazy steps closer. "Lucky for you, I’ve made a career out of turning dull men into legends.” If he don’t want to care about glory, Anira would simply care enough for the both of them.

Anira leaned one shoulder against the wall, arms folded. She tilted her head, studying the monster hunter. “Now, if you’re hoping to find her by sniffing the drapes, I’ll save you some time, hunter. Any trail’s been trampled to death by now. Any scent worth following’s been buried under the debauchery days ago.” Her tone was cheerful, almost helpful.

“The Mother of Pearls,” she said, her voice rich and lilting, like she was half-singing. “Painted about forty years ago by a Cindersend expatriate ... Aerlen Vex. Mad as a saint, he painted what he claimed the gods whispered into his ear.” She tipped her head toward the empty wall. "They say he mixed crushed nacre and blood into the paint." Rumors never said whose blood, though. Maybe his own? Maybe the goddess he was painting?

"Two meters of shimmering art. You couldn’t hang it anywhere decent. Too strange for the temples, too unsettling for most collectors, too haunting for polite society. So naturally it ended up here, among tits, tears, and cheap perfume.” The Madame made a noise somewhere behind them before she excused herself and said they could find her in her chamber if they needed her. “It's framed in birch so pale it might’ve been kissed by the moons, cut from the highest ridge of the Edjer Highlands, no less."

Anira turned her gaze to the hunter, so grim, brooding, and so painfully serious it was almost charming. “You’ve still not told me your name,” she said lightly. “I do like to know what to call a man before I follow him into trouble.”

 

[Brennak Kor]

"If that's your aim why don't you just save me the trouble and find someone else to glorify?"

He didn't want to be the subject of songs and stories, and he didn't care if she had a history of doing it. That made it worse. Having her around would just cause him more trouble than it was worth. He wanted to find the painting, return it, collect his fee, and go back to doing what he did best: hunting beasts. Though he suspected this hunt would be just as interesting, lives weren't at stake. It was less priority to him, but there wasn't much else to do.

When she commented on there being no scents he didn't say anything, just looked at her impassively. He didn't need her to tell him what he already knew, but why not let her think it was useful commentary? He was waiting for the information he'd asked for and didn't want to derail her.

When she did speak of it, she didn't give him a lot to go on. She gave him a bunch of insight into where it wouldn't show up, except that he could see it showing up in two of them if you counted out the average response it had received and focused on the abnormal. The whole painting was abnormal. The abnormal people were the ones most likely to take an interest in it.

"There any particular underground for followers of said gods in the city? Or, better yet, an underground cult following of Vex?"

The strongest desire to take something which only had value to a few was going to come from the few that valued the creator. If he had a cult following, perhaps one of them was the one who took it. And no, he didn't give her his name. Nor was he going to. Hard to write songs or tell stories about someone without their name and he was dead set on not being the subject of either.

 

[Anira Verseheart]

"If that's your aim why don't you just save me the trouble and find someone else to glorify?"

Anira gave an exaggerated sigh and looked at him as though he’d just refused wine at a royal banquet. A cranky man of few words. Just what every bard dreams of. "Sulking it suits you, you know, gives you that whole ‘tragic farmhand turned reluctant hero’ appeal.” She flicked her hand in a careless little wave.

“Very well, if you won’t tell me your name, I’ll simply have to name you myself. Let’s see…” Her eyes swept him up and down with shameless theatricality. “You look like a… Hobblegurt. Yes." She grinned, clearly delighted with herself.

"The Gods? Oh, it’s just the Eight. I’d like to imagine they have a quaint little collection of shady, whispering cults tucked away somewhere." Her gaze cut sideways to him, sly and amused. Anira tilted her head. "As for your grand theories, dear Hubblegurt, there’s no cult following of Vex... that I know of at least"

She gave him a little shrug, then tilted her head toward the doorway. “The Ember District. You’ll find your "underground" zealots there, worshipping coin, blood, or the thrill of getting away with something forbidden. So what do you say, Hobblegurt? Fancy a stroll through the underbelly of Crorefell?"